


Wasted Daylight

by MacaroniSwirls



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha! Rose, Gen, Sadstuck, post scratch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:56:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacaroniSwirls/pseuds/MacaroniSwirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose grows up, and she has friends, and she gets a good education, and she lives the happy American suburban life. Something still feels off. Post-Scratch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wasted Daylight

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Like Forgetting the Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/288405) by [elwing_alcyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwing_alcyone/pseuds/elwing_alcyone). 



> A lot of the Post-Scratch stuff seems to be aimed at Dave, so I decided to shoot the angst arrow at a different character.
> 
> A lot of inspiration came from 'Like Forgetting the Words' by elwing_alcyone, and it's fairly obvious. If you haven't read it yet, go check it out.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

When you are five years old, your parents called you contrary, and overly sarcastic, and that you were the exact epitome of what every proper five year old is not. However, they’re still words, and you don’t necessarily understand the words, but they hurt all the same. Ten minutes later, when they come up to the room, they hug you, and it feels indescribably foreign, like oil on water.

Your prime escape is in school – the drawing and the writing and the focusing on the task at hand. You like to fill in every blank, open up every possibility, find a way to legally break every rule.

One time you had to describe a pet, and you fill in the blanks on the worksheet in front of you with complete fantasy.

The end result has JASPERS scrawled across the top, and the fragmented dialect of a kindergardner’s writing skills: ‘Jaspers is black. Jaspers is small. I like Jaspers.’ You hand in the paper, because the words you wrote felt important. You are five, so it’s easy to disregard this.

Four months later, it’s Christmas, and you parents have a small box with holes in it and when you open the lid a small black kitten jumps out, and priority demands that he be played with.

There really needs to be something nice and formal to drape over him and make him properly businesslike. There’s nothing, however, so you just drape a gray blanket over him. He lays on the couch proudly with notepad and pencil in his arms.

“Let’s begin this session, Jaspers.”

Jaspers lazily yawns, shakes the blanket off himself, and jumps off the couch. You didn’t play much with Jaspers after that, and he grew up to be an incredibly fat, albeit happy, cat.

-_-_-

Fifth grade is the last year you can legally bring a small wild animal to school, and you quickly take advantage of the opportunity. Sadly, the closest thing you have is your cat, but you bring him with you anyway in the hope that he might stir up some excitement regardless. The ten point extra-credit bonus is simply another incentive.

Usually on this day, you scope the room for more unique animals, but today something much less extraordinary has caught your eye. A massive white dog is laying down in the corner of the room, and the young black haired girl draped across it feels appropriate, along with the young man with the blue eyes and the black hair next to him.

Over you come, and they both grin at Jaspers, and you notice that her eye colors are off – a dull brown.

“I like your dog.”

“Thanks.” She’s hesitant to say it, but the way she leans back at your arrival makes her seem like a hesitant kind of person.

“I don’t know why, but you strike me as the type with a rifle interest?”

“What!?” She looks mildly horrified, and her brother is suddenly laughing his ass off, and no, these aren’t the people you were expecting them to be.

“Nothing, sorry, you just reminded me of someone I was acqaintances with.”

You go back to who is currently your ‘best friend’. She’s a grammar chick who has this awkward manner of putting emphasis on the first part of each word She’s foreign, and you assume this vocal effect is her accent coming through.

“Are you even listening?” She angrily says at one point. You aren’t, you’re just listening to the familiar emphasis on every word. The comfort of it is lost when you listen to what she’s actually saying.

_-_-_-_

“What’d your dad do at his job today?” Everyone assumes you date the kid you chat with at the car depot every day, but his nose is much too prominent and the rest of his face must too reticent for you to find him attractive.

No, you just like to sit here, and talk to him, mostly about the exploits of his magnanimous father Mr. John Crocker.

“He performed again today. The usual tomfoolery.”

You sit and think. Thinking so hard isn’t usually appropriate for small talk like this, but you feel inclined to pry away every bit of information about this man. “Do you mind if I come over to meet him some time? He appears to be quite the character.”

“No thanks, our house isn’t really good for guests if you know what I mean. Why’re you so intent on meeting him anyway? This is like the fifth time you’ve asked.”

You shrug.

You never managed to convince him to let you meet his dad.

-_-_-

It was a quiet day in university when you passed him, one chance encounter amongst all the chance encounters one finds on a large campus, but it’s a memory that sears at your mind.

“Those are some really dumb glasses you got, you know?” You say, and he looks back, and he looks so hopeful at the sound of your voice, and with a shock you realize that you both have the same smile on your face.

“Wait a moment, let me flip my shit over the fact that some wonderful young lady just gave me such a marvelous compliment.”

“I am so glad that you have managed to dig through the deep mire of your unsure sexuality to find your earthly desire for vagina. I was worried you’d be entrenched in the trenches of repressed homosexuality right now.”

He laughs unchararistically loud. “Indeed, miss teen genius, I’m dating a lovely girl with the most vivid green eyes, and my heart explodes like Hiroshima whenever I see them.”

“That sounds a bit sappy, especially knowing your potency for ill beats.”

“Much more classy things for me to do. Like listen to you ramble on about horroterrors or some shit.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never had much interest in those.”

“What? Of course you do, you like horrorterrors, and writing bad wizard slash, and psychoanalyzing.”

“Can’t judge based on first impressions. I’d say you’re the kind who likes rapping, and making shitty art, and dashing up some sick jams, spelling the former word improperly with a z.”

“You seem like the type who grew up with a terrible alcoholic mom.”

“Nope, perfectly healthy family.”

“Same here.”

The two of you pause, and suddenly it feels extremely awkward, like a kid who swore the the puzzle pieces he had used to fit so well, only to realize that they have completely changed form and the once-familiar cogs no longer fit.

“Is your name by chance Rose Lalonde?”

“No, not a Lalonde. And I’m guessing you’re not Dave Strider?”

“No, I’m a completely different Dave. And maybe you’re looking another Dave, one who was into rap and who loved shitty swords, but I like making movies and robotics.”  
Both of you stand there, expecting more, but you're only greeting by silence.

“Well, nice to meet you, but I really need to get going back to class.”

"Sure."

Both of you go your separate ways.  
_-_-_-_

When you’re out of college, you make a living as a chemist, but you also attempt to write a book on the side, and it’s dumb and childish and idiotic and you hate yourself for it, but you have never felt as happy as the moment you inscribed dumb and childish and idiotic words on paper.

It was about four kids, and the first two chapters are sickeningly cheerful. The kids all happily play, and nobody dies (why this seemed important to note, you aren’t sure), and you dismiss the project as inane after the third chapter and go back on to doing decent things with your life.

_-_-_

Your pdd meteor baby is growing up fine, and you tell all your friends that you are extremely proud of her, and that it’s simply self-expression when she goes outside wearing that revealing outfit, and self-expression is vital for any young child. Yes, you say, of course you love her dearly.

And you also want to say, yes, she did drink alcohol, you simply left it out and she drank it, and she continues to drink it, but only when it appears particularly hilarious to leave it out. You take steps to raise her well, after all. You set the example that every young girl wishes to have growing up. Sometimes you surreptitiously leave some alcohol out, or forget to unlock the beer cupboard, but the young woman should have more self-control. If she decides to drink more at that point, it’s her problem.

You still love her, and something about her seems so much more charming when she’s drunk.

The little girl still has friends at school, and friends online, so you figure it’s okay. She’s still well adjusted in your opinion.

Sometimes, late at night, when you’re both tipsy, you feel the tugging hands of your daughter pulling at you when you’re in one of your slumps. It’s something she seems to be able to sense, and you always tell her that you’ve simply thought to hard, and that you cranium is busy rejuvenating itself after exhaustion.

“Mom,” she says one day. “I think you need some friends.”

“Dear,” you say as patronizingly as possible. “Your mother has lots of friends.”

“Not any of the kind that help you. You seem so freaking lonely all the time”

“Young lady, have I over told you that you remind me of someone?” By this point, you’re more than a little drunk, and your daughter’s looking at you with large eyes. “She was an idiot, and she taunted me every day, and there was no day that she was not cold stone drunk.”

She looks at you, and it appears you have bought her to tears.

It’s a mother’s duty to hurt their child – make the child distrust her. This appears to be a truth you acquired a long time ago, but you aren’t sure when or how.

_-_-_

One day, your daughter is gone, so you look through her chat logs. You tell yourself that it’s to make sure that she’s getting up to nothing inappropriate, but you know that it’s more curiosity.

A small part of you is happy to see your daughter succeed so much in the social department, even if online, but more of it is angry, and jealous, and unsettled. A small part of you writhes uncomfortably as you scroll past the columns of red, blue, and green, and something about this feels too familiar – a terrible form of déjà vu.  
For a moment, you just sit there, and look at the computer.

What’s missing?

Something is missing.

**Author's Note:**

> “A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it's you and me together forever and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart.”
> 
> -Unknown


End file.
